GameXplain - Fire Emblem: Three Houses Q&A - 40 of Your Questions Answered!

[HappyHawlucha.]

Wait is it confirmed how we recruit faculty? Is it like students from other houses where they have requirements or what?

[Onestep]

3 minutes ago, HappyHawlucha. said:

Wait is it confirmed how we recruit faculty? Is it like students from other houses where they have requirements or what?

Shamir is interested in Byleth's level, so I'd imagine that you eventually get her every game.

[Disclaimer]

15 minutes ago, HappyHawlucha. said:

Wait is it confirmed how we recruit faculty? Is it like students from other houses where they have requirements or what?

Shamir required level, and there's previewer screenshots with her + Manuela + Hanneman all recruited at the same time. All the faculty are probably level requirements to supplement players' rosters. 

According to one previewer who was 50h into the game (wherever that puts them), Gilbert, Alois, Seteth, and Catherine still had no option to be permanently recruited. 

[Moonlit Knight]

1 hour ago, Disclaimer said:

Shamir required level, and there's previewer screenshots with her + Manuela + Hanneman all recruited at the same time. All the faculty are probably level requirements to supplement players' rosters. 

According to one previewer who was 50h into the game (wherever that puts them), Gilbert, Alois, Seteth, and Catherine still had no option to be permanently recruited. 

I suspect that some faculty (like Manuela and Hanneman) will be easy to recruit, but that the vast majority of the faculty and knights (such as those four) will only be recruitable depending on the decisions or actions you make during the story.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Moonlit Knight

[Tenzen12]

7 hours ago, HappyHawlucha. said:

Remember Derrick hasn't even went post timeskip yet so don't take stuff like "No late recruitment confirmed" as 100% since it may change later on.

Given that I doubt people that you scout are likely actually change their countries they live, I think these could be possibly recruited in battle as enemies or visiting villages post time-skip

[Ryuke]

They ran out of budget to voice Byleth. Wow.

At this point I prefer they keep it silence like the GBA era

Edited July 14, 2019 by Ryuke

[Etrurian emperor]

So I noticed something interesting in the footage that's shown in the background. Derick refuses to use him and has him stand way back in the starting area but we see that Sylvain is part of his Black Eagle team. We also know that Derick hasn't recruited any characters from other houses yet. He said he didn't manage to do it and the one he's targeting was Leonie from the Golden Deer, not Sylvain. 

So would this mean that characters from other houses occasionally get into your party as guest characters? 
 

Spoiler

The giant monster has often been rumored to be connected to the crest and I think this one supposedly has a crest symbol. Maybe the beast is connected to Sylvain's family and that's why he's present. Maybe its even his big bro

 

[Fabulously Olivier]

17 hours ago, redlight said:

Lol. Panty sweat rag. Something tells me it was Felix

I'm thinking it's Caspar.

[Etrurian emperor]

6 minutes ago, Etheus said:

I'm thinking it's Caspar.

I'm hoping its Rafael 

[Druplesnubb]

34 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So I noticed something interesting in the footage that's shown in the background. Derick refuses to use him and has him stand way back in the starting area but we see that Sylvain is part of his Black Eagle team. We also know that Derick hasn't recruited any characters from other houses yet. He said he didn't manage to do it and the one he's targeting was Leonie from the Golden Deer, not Sylvain. 

So would this mean that characters from other houses occasionally get into your party as guest characters? 
 

  Hide contents

The giant monster has often been rumored to be connected to the crest and I think this one supposedly has a crest symbol. Maybe the beast is connected to Sylvain's family and that's why he's present. Maybe its even his big bro

 

It's already known that you can guest recruit characters for one month. He probably wanted Sylvain around for the chapter that deals with his family.

[Azz]

32 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So I noticed something interesting in the footage that's shown in the background. Derick refuses to use him and has him stand way back in the starting area but we see that Sylvain is part of his Black Eagle team. We also know that Derick hasn't recruited any characters from other houses yet. He said he didn't manage to do it and the one he's targeting was Leonie from the Golden Deer, not Sylvain. 

So would this mean that characters from other houses occasionally get into your party as guest characters? 
 

  Hide contents

The giant monster has often been rumored to be connected to the crest and I think this one supposedly has a crest symbol. Maybe the beast is connected to Sylvain's family and that's why he's present. Maybe its even his big bro

 

Yeah it was shown in the French gameplay at Japan Expo that you can temporarily recruit students for a month to help out at field studys

[gangly369]

17 minutes ago, Druplesnubb said:

It's already known that you can guest recruit characters for one month. He probably wanted Sylvain around for the chapter that deals with his family.

Just to add onto/clarify this, it's mentioned that this was specifically done in order to have access to the paralogue, implying that if he did not have Sylvain (guest) recruited, then he would not have been able to do this mission

 

Bleh, went back and double-checked the video to make sure, looks like he brought Sylvain along just for the extra-story beats, not that it opened up a specific paralogue. My bad

Edited July 14, 2019 by gangly369

[timon]

btw this "guest student" thing means that we PROBABLY can see every paralogue in one run. At least the ones non-house related like Dorothea/Ingrid and Ignatz/Raphael.

[Jedi]

5 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So I noticed something interesting in the footage that's shown in the background. Derick refuses to use him and has him stand way back in the starting area but we see that Sylvain is part of his Black Eagle team. We also know that Derick hasn't recruited any characters from other houses yet. He said he didn't manage to do it and the one he's targeting was Leonie from the Golden Deer, not Sylvain. 

So would this mean that characters from other houses occasionally get into your party as guest characters? 
 

  Reveal hidden contents

The giant monster has often been rumored to be connected to the crest and I think this one supposedly has a crest symbol. Maybe the beast is connected to Sylvain's family and that's why he's present. Maybe its even his big bro

 

You can temporarily recruit other house students for maps, kind of like the mercenary mechanic in Berwick Saga.

[Hawkwing]

Each Question Summarized:

1. While there are exceptions, most of the maps will be "rout the enemy" or "defeat the leader". That said, there are a number of special conditions present. The two mentioned in the video was a map where the other houses were fighting each other, and if you defeated more units than the other houses at the end, you got a special item. There was also a choice between defeating a super strong enemy or fighting everyone else first.
   1. Side note: There are Paralogues.
2. The Frame Rate is solid. The only time it dips is in the monastery. Derrick admitted he didn't know if the game ran at 30 or 60 Frames Per Second.
3. While auto-tutoring makes the process faster, you may not be able to get as many support points compared to if you do it manually. Derrick said it was unclear whether or not this was the case, however. Some skirmishes cost a unit of time, while others could be done repeatedly. You can potentially powerlevel your units, but eventually you'll reach a plateau, and it's not necessary.
4. There are around 30 classes, and more unlock as you go up the tiers. It seems to be better to reach the 100% pass requirement than to risk, say, a 75% chance to promote. Save scumming didn't seem to work, even when it was around a 68% chance. You can reclass to whatever you want anytime you want after unlocking the class. Classes aren't weapon locked, even if, say, a mage would be better at using magic than they would a lance (although they could still become solid at doing so as they gain weapon experience and level up their skills).
5. Soundtrack is excellent as always. It's up to personal preference as to which game has the best.
   1. It might be orchestrated. Derrick couldn't tell.
6. It appears that it's possible to recruit every single character from the other houses except the leader and one or two other characters. That said, it does seem like you have to dedicate your skills and stats towards a specific area to recruit someone. Recruiting the professors is much easier since it just requires getting to a certain level. Characters make it clear what stats or skills they require in order to join your house. Recruiting everyone would require some serious powerleveling.
7. The game is very accessible. It's very customizable, you can automate certain aspects of the game until you understand them better, and you can take your time about learning more about the characters and the story since you aren't forced to go form one map to the next one. The tactics are less complex than past games, there's casual mode, and the rewind feature returns. Derrick claims that Three Houses is one of the most approachable Fire Emblem games.
8. Derrick hasn't gotten far enough to confirm if romance is in the game, but he did notice that only Byleth had S ranks, and even then it wasn't with everyone. He also didn't know if S ranks with the same gender implied romance or becoming close friends. Derrick did bring up that in one of the paralouges, a marriage proposal was interrupted because the man asking for one of your units hands in marriage was shady. Afterwards, two girls had a conversation along the lines up "I wouldn't mind marrying you" "I'd be down with that" which seemed to be played like a joke but not entirely. If romance is in his game, then Byleth does have a lot of options.
9. The only time Byleth speaks in when they level up or change classes (or grunts in battle, if that counts). There are dialogue options, but Byleth doesn't speak them out loud, and they're still one of the least talkative characters in the game. This is poked fun at, but it seems like not having Byleth talk more often is a miss opportunity.
   1. The only thing you can customize about Byleth is their gender.
10. Pair up is replaced by the adjutant system. Once Byleth has a C in their professor rank, they can bring in an adjutant. From what I can gather from it, if you have an extra slot open for a unit, you can bring in an adjutant. You can only bring one at first, but you might be able to bring more later. You might be able to have them join up with another unit and help them out. Support bonuses work as they do in previous games, but you can earn hearts with up to five characters depending on how you're situated. Derrick mentioned it was easy to unlock C supports.
    1. Ten seemed to be the common amount of characters you could bring into battle.
11. Derrick played on normal (because it's hard to tell how difficult normal and hard will be in Fire Emblem) and with permadeath. He claims he only lost one character early on, and he was able to rewind it.
12. Byleths name is customizable, but characters either refer to them in a general sense or call them professor.
13. Every single character can be given a sword, thus everyone can be an "Anime Sword Fighter".
14. The maps themes and visuals are pretty similar to each other, with a town and a volcano being the exception, but Derrick feels that that's because he's still in the early parts of the game and that it might be changed up later on. He also said that it was mostly big open fields, and there weren't faux multi-levels (he mentioned how Awakening had a map where it looked like you were climbing up a mountain, even if gameplaywise it was flat) yet.
15. There were five or six animated cutscenes eight chapters in, and they highlighted big events. There are a lot more in-game scenes with characters interacting with each other. Each chapter/month, there was a stained glass like painting that goes over the history of Foldan and what they do for each month (such as preparing for winter), which aids in the worldbuilding.
16. Enemy recruitment doesn't seem to be a thing in this game.
    1. Being able to re-watch support conversations was available from the beginning, and Derrick said that he recognized all of the names from the monastery.
17. Story Question:
    1. This is probably one of the best Fire Emblem stories so far. Unlike past games, where the protagonists have a clear goal in mind, there are a ton of mysteries in the game. Why are these uprising happening, or why did this or that happen? There's something weird with your dad, and you don't know why. There's weird things about you that you don't fully understand. You don't have the full story for some of the conversations Edelgard has. Each of the introduction to the leaders of the Houses hints that they're darker than they appear.
    2. Characterization is also solid. Apparently, characters react when they take a life for the first time. Some of them panic, some find it great, some are just glad to have their training pay off, and so on.
    3. While he doesn't know if these mysteries pay off yet, the set up is fantastic.
18. Regular amiibo give you items, while Fire Emblem ones give you some music and some items you wouldn't get from other amiibo.
19. Byleth would be the most likely to get into Smash, and their chain sword would make them unique, but all of the house leaders have a high chance.
20. The graphics aren't a visual showcase, but that's a common complaint with Fire Emblem. The graphics themselves are okay, but the little details in battle and at the school are pretty neat.
21. As far as they can tell, there are no children in the game.
22. There are Calm/Ablaze variations to the music, but it isn't as noticeable this time around, and it may not apply to every song.
23. You can't replay missions, but there are skirmishes. If your professor level is high enough, you can do more maps at once (I believe he meant that you could do two or more battles in a day). There are quests in each month. Derrick never felt the need to grind. He did mention that his units were at level 17 and 18 while the enemies were at 15, and he only did one grinding battle to test out how skirmishes work.
24. On the day off, you can choose to explore and talk to people, or do a battle, or hold a seminar to teach both the teachers and students different specialties or take a rest. An online feature shows what other people chose to do over the weekend. There is the option to buy or sell special items to other players, but it's not necessary.
25. Anna may appear post-timeskip.
26. The weapon triangle isn't in the game, but effective damage is still present, and certain combat arts do effective damage. Skills like swordbreaker and lancebreaker are still in the game and are unlocked by reaching a certain rank with a weapon.
27. He doesn't think there's an "objective best house" yet. At least, not without trying the other houses yet.
28. You really only use 8 days of the month for exploring and battling. The rest are spent on tutoring. Days last as long as you want them too. He mentions spending an hour exploring to talk to everyone and view on all the side quests, but another person could spend 10-15 minutes dashing to do a specific task. Battles included, it usually took around three hours to get through each month.
29. There are around 10 save files, including an autosave function.
30. Only Byleths gender, name, and birthday can be customized
31. The voice acting is very solid, and there are some high quality voice actors in the game.
32. Derrick doesn't know exactly when the time skip occurs, but it happening after 12 months of the school stage is his guess.
33. You can skip things like side missions and tutoring and head straight to the main missions. You will miss out on worldbuilding, character interactions, and making your units even stronger, but it is a viable option.
34. Byleths hair style is not customizable, but Derrik didn't rule out an update or DLC giving players that option.
35. The lords are probably romancable, but only if you are in their house. Again, it depends on what S supports refer to.
36. You can switch over to the Japanese dub if you want.
37. Manuela is the worst the fanservice gets. Even though some of the classes show skin, they aren't super revealing. If anything, the dialogue in the game is the most suggestive part. Manuela and Dorthea flirt quite a bit (with the former even mentioning wanting some "alone time"), and apparently there was a moment when a character was using a blue cloth as a sweat rag, and later Dorthea was asking about missing a piece of clothing that was blue. Draw your own conclusions. Little jokes like that seem common in the game, but it never gets incredibly risque or fanservicy.
    1. The tea minigame was brought up, and if you do well enough you can move the camera around to get a better look at the character. Derrick didn't find this creepy, but you also have to pick the right dialogue choices in order for this to happen.
38. The game can be a little overwhelming at first, but it gives you time to adjust to the mechanics. The side quests help in easing one into certain aspects of the game (such as fishing, cooking, giving advice, and so on). By the second chapter, Derrik felt he had a grip on the mechanics.
39. Magic works differently in this game. There are no buyable tomes. Instead, characters learn new spells as they level up in a class or as they level up their reason and faith magic. New spells with have limited uses, while older ones will increase in the amount of times you can use them. The example he gives is that a character can only use the heal spell five times at first, but as they level up, they gain physic and restore, and heal can be used 15 times. It seemed to go from five uses to ten and similar increments. However, while Edelgard had some magic spells, she wasn't able to use them. Derrik didn't know if he had to reclass her into a magic-based class first, or if she would only be able to use the spells in a magical class. He admits that he hasn't tested that feature out a whole lot. Magical classes can still use physical weapons, just not as well as other classes.
40. Edelgard>Claude>Dmitri, although he admitted that's only because he knows more about Edelgard than the other two at the moment. Claude came off as a trickster and someone who plays the system to his advantage. He doesn't seem to be a bad leader, but those qualities do make him an interesting one. Dmitri is a stick in the mud and very concerned about his role, but his backstory is interesting considering the events that happened in his kingdom. Both gave off the impression that there was more to them that met the eye. Edelgard is also a stick in the mud, but was more willing to throw out barbs than Dmitri was. Her personality didn't open up and become interesting until later on in the story.

TL;RD:

• The main map objectives seem to fall into "rout the enemy" or "defeat the leader", but several of them do have special objectives to fulfill. Visually, the maps are pretty open and flat (contrasted with, say, how some of Awakening's maps looked like you were climbing up a mountain even if the map itself was technically flat).
• It's better to reach the 100% requirement than to risk a lower pass percentage. You can reclass to any unlocked class at anytime, and every class can wield every weapon, even if some are better at using certain weapons than others. There are around 30 classes in the game.
• The game is very accessible, and does a good job at easing a new player into its mechanics.
• The only thing customizable about Byleth is their name, gender, and birthday. Characters either speak in general terms or call Byleth professor when referring to them. Byleth is silent, and the only time they speak is when leveling up or changing classes (and grunting in battle, if that counts).
• It is possible to recruit every character except for the house leaders and two or three other characters, but the requirements for doing so are pretty high. It is much easier to recruit professors.
• The story is very mysterious, with several things happening that make you wonder what exactly is going on. There were 5 to 6 cutscenes 8 chapters in, and they highlighted big events. Every month, you see a stained glass window painting that depicts what Foldan does each month as a method of worldbuilding. The setup for these mysteries is fantastic, although it's unknown how well they pay off.
• Characterization is solid, as is the voice performances. Each of the three lords seemed to have more to them than what first meets the eye.
• S-supports may or may not imply romance or just becoming close friends. Byleth is the only character to have them. Regardless, Byleth has a lot of options in this game for S-supports, even if it does not include everyone.
• The game really lasts as long as you want it to. You can either explore the monastery, or dash to complete certain objectives. You can even skip to the end of the month if you want to, although you miss out on much by doing so.
• Magic is handled differently, where some spells are class based and others depend on the characters skill level. As it increases, new spells are unlocked, while old ones increase in the amount of times they can be used. Magic classes can still uses physical weapons, even if they are not the best at doing so.
• It seems that skills are unlocked both based on classes and weapon experience.
• The fanservice is heavily toned down. However, suggestive dialogue does seem to be common without getting too risque, and is more often than not played as a small joke.
• Music is great, the calm/ablaze formula is back though not as noticeable or frequent, and you can switch to the Japanese voices if you want.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Hawkwing
I don't know how to spell "Derrick" and "Byleth". Also, added a TL:DR section.